In recent years, warp-knit, weft-insertion fabrics have increasingly replaced woven-type fabrics, particularly as low-cost alternatives for end-use applications such as drapery fabrics, upholstery and the like. The lower cost of warp-knit, weft-inserted fabrics, as well as their dimensional stability, has contributed to popular use of those fabrics, particularly where the aesthetics of the fabric is not particularly important. Increasingly, however, warp-knit, weft-inserted fabrics are being used in the decorative fabric field where aesthetics are a primary concern.
It is also known to incorporate woven and non-woven substrates into a warp-knitted, weft-inserted construction. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,841,749. It has been found, however, that the resulting fabrics using non-woven substrates tend to be uneven such that when the fabrics are given a foam backing which is desired for certain drapery or upholstery uses, the foam backing tends to be non-uniformly visually perceptible through the front side of the fabric, i.e. the side typically viewed for its aesthetics characteristics, when using color warp-weft yarns. That is, because of the unevenness of the non-woven substrate, typical of most commercially provided substrates for this purpose, the usual white-colored background of the foam backing becomes prominent and visible in a non-uniform fashion from the technical back side of the fabric. A woven material may be used as a substrate but it is inordinately expensive for these uses. While use of a non-woven substrate is therefore indicated in the decorative fabrics field, non-woven substrate materials are typically uneven and, when used as a colored background for the warp and weft yarns, together with foam backing, the conventional white foam backing tends to "grin," i.e., non-uniformly appear, through the front side of the fabric.
One of the problems with warp-knit, weft-inserted fabrics has been the production of a fabric with an inexpensive multi-colored texture on solid-colored background. Ordinarily, there are two different ways to produce a solid color decorative fabric The warp and weft yarns may be dyed and placed relatively close together in the fabric to produce the solid color. The dense construction of the warp and weft yarns is important when the decorative fabric is subsequently foam-backed, because any gap would show up as a white "grin through," making the fabric look less attractive and valuable. Alternatively, the fabric may be piece-dyed, which is an inexpensive way to achieve a solid-colored fabric. However, all of the yarns are dyed the same color unless differently dyed yarns are used, which adds to the expense. Thus, the problem at hand is to provide an inexpensive solid-colored fabric that incorporates differently-colored and/or textured warp/weft yarns into a solid-colored background which, when foam-backed, does not show the color of the foam backing through the fabric from its technical back side.